Nokia's Lumia doing rather well

The first batch of Nokia phones running Windows software may have sold enough units last year to help rebuild investor confidence.

Nokia has been banking the farm on its deal with Microsoft to pull its nadgers out of the fire. The Lumia handsets, which went on sale in Europe in November, probably sold 1.3 million units globally to operators and retailers by the end of last year, according to the average estimate of 22 analysts compiled by Bloomberg.

The projections range from 800,000 to 2 million and only one analyst predicted sales of fewer than 1 million handsets. But that means that the numbers are starting to add up for Nokia at last if ig can get beyond two million it will be on the road to recovery.

Chief Executive Officer Stephen Elop refused to give sales forecasts for the Lumia models and kept initial expectations low by stressing the long-term work involved in building a new “ecosystem” of applications and developers with Microsoft.